All students will receive THREE extra credit points on the final exam if, over the course of the quarter, no students use cell phones during the class. For each instance in which a student in the course uses a cell phone, one point will be deducted from the entire class’ extra credit points. This includes the view of cellphone on your table.

Above: John Michael Wright, Portrait of Miss Butterworth of Benfiel Hall, 1660s

Below: John Trumbull, George Washington, 1780

This course focuses on the wide implications of the slave trade for societies in Europe, Africa and the Americas. The main learning objective is an understanding of the role of the slave trade in shaping the Atlantic world and the strategies that historians develop to research this subject. Topics include the origins and debates around slavery and the slave trade, the impact of the slave trade on Atlantic societies, slave culture and resistance, the paradox of slavery and  freedom in the United States, as well as the connections between the slave trade and conceptions of race and ethnicity. The final weeks explore the origins and consequences of attempts to eradicate the transatlantic slave trade.